When you try to come up with a solution to what seems to be a simple problem, more questions than answers pop up. That was certainly the case when I began shooting in competition matches and my eyesight changed due to presbyopia, which is encountered by everyone to a certain degree as we age. The muscles in our eyes lose their flexibility, and have problems focusing on near and far objects.
The solution is a simple eye exam with an RX prescription for multifocal eyeglass lenses. These bi-focal eyeglasses have the distance correction on top and the near vision on the bottom, which assists the person to comfortably go about their daily business. Except, when it comes to shooting your scoped rifle or crossbow.
The problem encountered is that the scope is close to your eye. When you look through the scope, your cheek needs to be on the stock for proper alignment. This forces you to look through the top, long-distance vision portion of the eyeglasses, causing the crosshairs to become fuzzy and out of focus.
The proper element is the lower, near-vision portion of the eyeglasses. Attempting to look through the lower half, with your cheek properly touching the stock while maintaining correct point of aim is just about impossible.
ScopeAid® “The Clearest Shot of Your Life” was developed to solve the problem, by providing clear, crisp, black crosshairs and other information in the reticle of the rifle or crossbow scope. We take your RX prescription for the lower portion of the eyeglasses and make proprietary calculations. Then our custom CNC machines pixels on the lens surface. After polishing and application of our AR coating, the lens is installed in a silicone rubber housing. It is then ready to be installed on the scope eyepiece.
Wait, did I say silicone rubber housing? I started by discussing a simple solution to focus problems. In developing ScopeAid®, we needed to find a way to hold the custom RX prescription lens onto the eyepiece. Luckily I had worked for a custom rubber-molding company. I understand what is required to mold a custom rubber housing. It needed to securely hold the lens on the rifle or crossbow scope, fit on different shapes and sizes without falling off, and remain flexible enough to be interchangeable from scope to another.
A multiple cavity mold was produced to make a rubber housing that fits a variety of scope diameters from 1.48 to 1.80; a larger size fits from 1.80 to 2.10 diameters. We then chose a rubber material that would give us the flexibility to change from scope to scope without falling off the scope while in use.
A standard rubber compound didn’t meet our high standards. Instead, we chose medical-grade silicone rubber which meets our quality requirements and securely holds our state-of-the-art lens in place.
These are some of the little things that needed to be overcome for ScopeAid to bring a competitive, reliable solution to wearing bifocals and shooting through a rifle or crossbow scope.
About Jay Eller
Jay is an avid hunter and competitive long range 600 to 1,000 yard F-Class and Benchrest shooting enthusiast. Hunting includes local, mid-west and western big game, as well as African plains game. He is a Life member of the North American Hunting Club, also a certified gunsmith with FFL, an Endowment member of the NRA, classified mid range and long range F-Class shooter and long term SASS member. He has been very active in developing an optical solution to the problems related to Presbyopia. To solve the problems, for safely aiming and shooting firearms, while wearing multi-focal eyeglasses has been a challenge since my eyesight changed with aging. Knowing that everyone, who hunts and shoots firearms, will be as frustrated as I was, offered a potential opportunity. In addition to correcting the vision problem, we have added the contrast capability of birds of prey’s ability to see earlier in the morning and later in the day. This is a large game animal’s prime time for natural movement from feeding to bedding down. No one else has been able to offer the two vision solutions that SCOPEAID has developed. “I feel very proud to have been able to bring a solution too all the hunters and shooters who still want to continue their hobby while dealing with “the aging process”.
